Research
The Department of Emergency Medicine has made significant strides in our research mission in recent years. We have been involved in more than a dozen multi-center clinical trials and have received numerous grants, totaling over $6 million in funded research. Two of these educational awards resulted in several faculty and residents traveling to Vietnam five times and Japan four times.
Research collaborations include our participation as members of the Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN). This is a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and National Institutes of Health-funded research network, in which we currently serve as a Upper Midwest Hub with the Universities of Minnesota and Iowa. We are currently active in two trials and anticipate several more over the next couple of years.
Yu-Long Li, MD, leads our basic science research with his lab and a team consisting of five other individuals. Their impressive efforts continue to receive National Institutes of Health- and American Heart Association-funded awards. In 2023 our basic science department ranked 20th in NIH funding for emergency medicine departments across the country and Dr. Li ranked 16th in funding as an individual investigator. We have collaborated some of our clinical interests with the team's bench science expertise, resulting in several recent publications. In addition, in 2022 we initiated our Emergency Medicine Basic Science Summer Research Program, which is a stipend-funded position for one undergraduate and one medical student for 10 weeks each summer.
In 2020 we secured both a statistician and research coordinator dedicated to our department. They were instrumental in improving the success of our investigator initiated studies and clinical trials.
The department's current focus is on patient-oriented research, primarily in infectious disease, critical care, domestic violence, rural medicine, pre-hospital care, medical informatics, clinical toxicology, suicide prevention and point of care ultrasonography. In addition, basic science research in heart failure, ischemic reperfusion injuries, and resuscitation is conducted in collaboration with the Division of Cardiology, Division of Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, and Department of Surgery.
Our proudest departmental accomplishment is the improvement in the quality of our resident research. Since 2018, we have had 34 of our resident’s projects accepted and presented on national and international platforms, including Society of Academic Emergency Medicine, American College of Emergency Physicians, Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine, and conferences in Turkey and Morocco. Our faculty provide excellent mentorship, and along with our support personnel, we guide our residents through each step of the process in completing a successful and worthy research project.
As a potential resident or new faculty member, you are invited to join us during this exciting time and help contribute to the scientific advancement in our field of emergency medicine.
Aaron Barksdale, MD, Vice Chair of Research
Dr. Barksdale has been the site principal investigator in numerous clinic trials, as well as overseeing resident research and collaborating with other UNMC faculty in investigator initiated research.